


Sugar Plum Fairies

by earlgreytea68



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Nutcracker, Secret Saito
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 00:37:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17193194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: Just what Arthur needs: a Nutcracker dream.





	Sugar Plum Fairies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mrhiddles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrhiddles/gifts).



> This is a Secret Saito gift for mrhiddles, who prompted "military." They were probably hoping for serious military, but, it being the season it is, this is what I came up with. 
> 
> Thanks to amy for letting me brainstorm!

“We’ll have to do something with the military,” Cobb muses, and Arthur starts making plans, sketching out his usual meticulous notes, uniforms and hierarchy and possible vague settings.

“What branch of the military?” Arthur asks as he jots down details.

“Hmm?” Cobb looks at him blankly.

Sometimes Arthur has to remind himself to be _so patient_ with Cobb. “Navy? Air Force? Marines?”

Cobb stares at him. “How am I supposed to know what branch of the military it is?”

_Great_ , Arthur thinks. Another thing he’s going to have to take care of. He makes another note to himself.

Except then Cobb says, “It’s whatever branch of the military fights rats, I suppose.”

Arthur takes a second to check his totem before he looks up at Cobb. “Fights rats,” he says flatly.

“Or maybe fights _with_ rats?” Cobb frowns thoughtfully. “Now I can’t remember. We’re going to have to figure it out.”

“There is no branch of the military in charge of _rats_ ,” Arthur says. He is maybe not being as patient as he could be, but fucking _really_.

“Yes, there is,” Cobb insists. “I mean, I assume there must be. It’s in the ballet.”

Arthur checks his totem again. “The what?”

“You know, the Rat King. And the Nutcracker.”

“The Nutcracker?” Arthur echoes.

“Oh, didn’t I mention?” says Cobb. “The marks loves _The Nutcracker_.”

***

Eames’s mouth twitches as he reads the file Arthur’s prepared for him. “It’s a _Nutcracker_ dream.”

“Cobb insists,” Arthur sighs.

“Let me guess. You want me to play Clara.”

“The mark is Clara,” Arthur says.

Eames’s eyes shine with glee. “Am I the Nutcracker?”

Arthur relishes getting to say, “You’re the rat.”

***

“So,” Eames says the next day, lolling on Arthur’s desk. Only Eames can loll on a desk like this, Arthur thinks, looking in annoyance at Eames’s hip cocked against his desk. There is no word for this other than _lolling_. “The joke is on you, petal.”

“I know you think life is just one perpetual joke, but there is no joke happening at the moment,” Arthur says. “I promise you.”

“You making me the rat? You think that was a funny, funny joke.” Eames waggles his finger in Arthur’s face.

“No, I don’t. It’s a professional decision necessitated by the fact that you’re the person on the team capable of forging a rat.”

“First, it’s not a rat, it’s a mouse.”

“Right, yes, sorry, but it’s, like, a human-sized mouse.”

“Second,” Eames continues, “who’s playing the Nutcracker?”

“Cobb,” Arthur answers.

“Think again, darling,” Eames replies.

“What are you talking about? Cobb’s going to be the Nutcracker and he’s going to extract the—”

“The Nutcracker leads an army, and defeats the magnificent Mouse King. You think I’m going to be defeated by _Cobb_?”

“Yes,” Arthur says tightly, “because the script calls for it.”

“Who among us,” Eames proclaims, both grand and light all at once, “has the military acumen to lead an army capable of defeating _me_? Who among us was once a strategic genius for the mightiest military force on the planet, with the ability to command troops, to send them willingly in the optimal formations, to overcome the considerable challenge I would represent?”

Throughout Eames’s speech, Arthur’s eyes grow narrower and narrower. He’s annoyed because Eames is delivering it like an orator, drawing the attention of the entire team. Arthur contemplates tipping his desk completely over to disrupt Eames’s perch.

He doesn’t, and Cobb says, “Hang on. Eames might be onto something.”

“Eames is onto nothing,” Arthur spits. “He might be _on_ something, though.”

Eames winks at him.

Cobb says, “You’re the one with the military experience, Arthur. Maybe you should be the Nutcracker.”

“No,” Arthur says. “ _You’re_ the Nutcracker.”

“But what if the mark realizes I don’t have military expertise?” asks Cobb.

“You don’t need military expertise to defeat an army of _mice_ ,” Arthur bites out, “in a _dream_.”

Cobb ignores him, repeating thoughtfully, “I think Eames is onto something.”

Arthur glares at Eames, who winks again.

***

Arthur doesn’t want to be the Nutcracker, but then again, he can’t remember the last time he won an argument against Eames.

He tells Eames that, miserable in his stupid Nutcracker costume, waiting under the tree for the mark to find him. “I can’t remember the last time I won an argument against you.”

Eames is lounging among the presents, and he manages to look sexy even as a mouse. It’s fucking annoying. He says, “Darling, you are misremembering. _I_ almost never win arguments against _you_.”

Arthur frowns. Eames’s voice coming out of a mouse is disconcerting. Usually Eames’s forges have a voice that goes with them. “Can’t you squeak more?” he demands.

“Squeak squeak,” squeaks Eames, and twitches his whiskered nose in Arthur’s face.

“Ugh,” Arthur says, swiping him away from him. “Gross.”

“Sweetums, you are such a handsome Nutcracker,” Eames informs him. “You were wasted in the American military. You should have joined a military with a splendid uniform. Like the British military.”

“If I’d joined the British military, I would have shot you.”

“We don’t condone murder in the British military,” Eames tsks at him.

_Tsks_. As a mouse.

Luckily, that’s when Eames leaps up and says, “Uh-oh, here they come, that’s my cue,” and goes dashing off, with his stupid mouse tail streaking behind him.

***

They scatter after the job, as usual. Arthur goes to Minsk, bundled up against the cold, and sends everyone their shares. And then he lays low, coping with the job-triggered insomnia by binge-watching every terrible cooking show he can download in the comfort of the AirBnB he wrangled for himself. He’s got a pretty good nest of blankets of going, and he’s thinking that he might try to learn how to cook in the new year.

Eames arrives at the start of the second week. Arthur doesn’t even bother getting out of his blanket nest. He can actually recognize the tread of Eames’s steps, and lots of things about Eames are annoying but maybe that’s the most annoying of all.

“Minsk, darling?” Eames says, and crawls right into the blanket nest without being invited.

“You would have expected me to go somewhere warm,” Arthur says.

“Yes, I had to sniff you out.” Eames swipes a Toblerone from Arthur’s snack pile and looks at Arthur’s tablet and says, “Ooh, cooking shows?”

“I’m going to learn how to cook,” Arthur says.

“Absolutely,” Eames agrees lightly, liberating the Toblerone. “How hard can it be?”

“Why are you here?” Arthur demands.

“You know. Wanted to make sure you were aces. Not allowing strange men to break into your flat.” Eames takes a bite of his Toblerone.

“I knew it was you.”

“The strangest of men,” says Eames.

“Was there a thing you wanted?” Arthur inquires.

Eames lifts an eyebrow at him.

Arthur huffs impatiently. “Eames.”

“Come now, love, didn’t you find my mouse tail irresistibly sexy?”

“No,” Arthur lies, worried about what Eames as a mouse may have revealed about his inner kinks.

Eames smiles at him like he knows all about the inner kinks. “Fear not, my pet, I am not here to wriggle my way into your blanket fort and seduce you.”

“It’s a nest,” Arthur corrects. “It’s a blanket _nest_.”

“Darling,” Eames says confidently, “people like you don’t make blanket nests, you erect fortresses of eiderdown around you and dare people like me to joust my way past the goose-feather pillows.”

“Are you high on something?” Arthur asks. “You’re not making any sense.”

Eames smiles again, presses his finger into the promise of Arthur’s dimple. “Can I take you out?”

“No.”

“Turtledove—”

“In Minsk? No. It’s not fit to go outside in Minsk at this time of year.”

“But, you see,” Eames wheedles. “The thing is.”

Arthur gives him a flat look, because _the thing is_ …they both know Arthur is letting him talk, letting him wheedle, letting him eat chocolate from Arthur’s stash in Arthur’s blanket nest.

“They have a ballet here. And the ballet is performing _The Nutcracker_. And the thing is: Wouldn’t it make a fabulous outing for a first date?”

Arthur considers. The truth is…a first date, at a ballet, in this curiously traditional way, after all these years of absurd _whatever_ this has always been, sounds…perfect.

Eames continues, “I bet they don’t have a Nutcracker half as sexy as you.”

“Hmm,” says Arthur, wondering if he’s really considering this.

“Or a Mouse King half as sexy as me,” Eames continues, and winks.

“I will go,” Arthur decides loftily, “only if you resist the urge to make any double entendres out of the names of the dances.”

Eames ponders. “Not even a glorious line about your sugar plums?”

“No,” says Arthur.

“You are heartless,” Eames decides, “but I will accept you terms if you let me feel you up during the Waltz of the Snowflakes.”

“Deal,” says Arthur.

 


End file.
